Italian Ceramics: Catalogue of the J. Paul Getty Museum Collection

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41

Saint Joseph with the

Christ Child

After a model by Giuseppe Sanmartin

(1720-1793)

Probably modeled by Gennaro Laudat

(active 1790s)

Naples

1790s

Polychrome terraglia (white-bodied,

glazed earthenware)^1

H: 53.8 cm J2i^3 /8 in.)

91.SE.74

MARKS AND INSCRIPTIONS
None.

CONDITION
There are no losses, breaks, or old repairs in the
piece. There are some firing cracks, which are

visible primarily on the interior surface. Hairline

cracks evident on the exterior are found: across

Joseph's left ankle,- sloping diagonally downward

from left to right across the lower part of Joseph's

yellow cloak near his right ankle and continuing

across the ankle; across the upper left thigh of the

Christ Child; and under the left arm of the Christ

Child, beginning at the front and continuing

around to the back of his upper chest. There are

some minor losses of glaze near these cracks as

well as small chips in several places, for example,

at the tip of the second toe of Christ's right foot,

the back of Joseph's left hand, and along the edges

of Joseph's cloak. Several minor chips occur along

the base of the piece.

The piece is open at the back (fig. 41c), where

the paste was scooped out to ensure safe drying

and firing; paste was removed from underneath

the base for the same reason. Close examination

of the areas where the piece has been chipped (i.e.,

Joseph's left hand and an area of his cloak on his

proper left side) shows that the clay is covered

with a white lead glaze over which colored glazes

were applied.

PROVENANCE

Possibly in the William Charlesworth Collection,

Naples (sold, Galleria Sangiorgi, Rome, Janu­

ary 29-February 3, 1901, lot 631 );^2 Bauza collec­

tion, Madrid, by 1953, and by descent in the same

family, sold to Same Art Ltd.; [Same Art Ltd.,

Zurich, 1990, sold to the J. Paul Getty Museum,

1991].

EXHIBITIONS

Possibly shown at Esposizione nazionale di belle

arti, Naples, 1877.^3

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Olivar 1953, 2: 109, 340, fig. 241; Martinez Caviro

1973, 20; Fittipaldi 1986, 2: 654-55, 699-700; Re­

port 1991-92, 15; Catherine Hess in J. Paul Getty

Museum Calendar (summer 1992): cover, i} Getty -

MusJ 20 (1992): 179, no. 78; Donatone 1993B, 40;

Donatone 1996, 32-33, 42, fig. 4; Donatone 1997,

49 ; Fusco 1997, 45; Masterpieces 1997, 91;

Museum Handbook 1997, 263; Summary

Catalogue 2001, no. 380; Fogelman and Fusco

2002, no. 42.

THE PIECE REPRESENTS THE STANDING SAINT JOSEPH

with the Christ Child. The composition of the group con­

veys a sense of intimacy between the two figures.

Joseph embraces and supports the child with his left

hand, holding Christ's right foot in his right hand. The

infant Jesus reaches around Joseph's back and points

toward him with his left hand. Both figures look down­

ward as if to engage a spectator below them. Saint Joseph,

dressed in a purple undergarment and a bright yellow

cloak, stands firmly on his right leg, with his left foot

supported on a small, colorful, rocky ledge. The nude

Christ Child sits on a burgundy red pillow with a yellow

tassel, placed atop a pedestal composed of brilliantly pig­

mented, rocky forms. The artist achieved remarkable

verisimilitude in the flesh tones of the figures: buff pink

darkens to rosy orange in the areas of the flesh that are

more deeply modeled and to red in the lips of both

figures.^4 All the colors used in the figures, drapery, and

cushion appear in bright, saturated, patchy areas in the

rocky formations of the base and support for the infant Je­

sus,- in addition, a bright copper green is included among

these brilliant colors. The fantastic suggestion of land­

scape is unified by the application of brown pigments.

The piece was first published in 1953 by Marcal

Olivar Daydi as a product of the Buen Retiro porce­

lain factory in Madrid, with a tentative attribution to

Giuseppe Gricci and a date of ca. 1765.^5 This identi­

fication was accepted by Balbina Martinez Caviro in

1973.^6 In 1986 Teodoro Fittipaldi noted that Saint Joseph
with the Christ Child was a ceramic version of a monu­
mental marble sculpture of 1790-92 of the same subject
by Giuseppe Sanmartino in Taranto cathedral (fig. 41E)
and for this reason could not have been a product of the
Buen Retiro factory dated to the 1760s.^7 Fittipaldi also
noted that the Getty ceramic was closely related to a
polychrome terra-cotta Madonna and Child signed by
Gennaro Laudato (active 1790s) and dated 1791, pointing
out that both objects depended upon Sanmartino's
Taranto sculpture.^8 This was the first step both in the
proposed attribution to Laudato of the Getty Saint
Joseph and in the identification of works by this other­
wise undocumented Neapolitan artist. Guido Donatone,
following Fittipaldi's argument, presented the ceramic in
publications in 1991 and 1993 as the work of Laudato,
gathering together several pieces that either bear

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